Column Reader4.1.1-signedNo Restart

Web reader for wide screens and long documents. Read with pleasure in one of many attractive layouts. NEW: Integrated image viewer with pan and zoom + Choice of replacement font. For Firefox 24.0 and newer.

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About this Add-on

Introduction

Column Reader makes reading a pleasure by providing the following features (see Screenshots 2 & 3):

> Paper, scroll and book layouts.> Up to five columns for wide screens.> Four different scrolling modes.> Document miniature view in scroll bar.> Replacement of fonts by a local font.> Color schemes and color transforms.> Full screen image view with pan and zoom.> Storage of settings for pages and domains.

Usage

Enter/exit reader.Column Reader adds a toolbar button from which you may 1) enter the content selection mode or may 2) directly enter the reader mode in case settings had already been saved for the active page or domain (see Screenshot 3). To exit the reader, click the Column Reader button or press ESC. To also close the original tab, click the close icon.

Saving settings. In the reader mode, take some time to find the settings that suit you most. Then use the buttons to save these settings as the general default or merely for the current page or domain. The settings that are saved are the following: column count, layout, mask, margins, scroll mode, full screen mode, font replacement, line height, color scheme, color transform and hidden elements. In addition, for pages and domains, the location of the selected element is saved, while for individual pages, the scroll location is saved.

Scrolling. The keys that can be used to scroll are the following: arrow left / arrow right / page up / page down / arrow up / arrow down / space / home.Reader areas that have a scroll function are recognizable by a custom mouse cursor. Content elements that can be scrolled horizontally show a horizontal arrow cursor.

Tips

> In case content is too wide to fit a column, your best option is to reduce the number of columns (ctrl+down).> In case content does not appear or cannot be read, your best option is to press the color scheme button.> Left-click is disabled inside Column Reader (except for internal links) for safety, but you may still use right-click.

Known issues

The following issues will be gone in the next version:> Index shows wrong miniatures after zooming.> After choosing different colors/fonts, the original colors/fonts can be restored only by restarting the reader.> Selecting a different color scheme can lead to unreadable text on some pages.

Future

The next version (5.0) will work in Firefox 35.0 and newer and will be compatible to multi-process Firefox. It won't work any more in Thunderbird and it will loose backward compatibility for all saved domain associations.

You may want to go on using the previous version. In that case, simply install version 4.1 from this extension's versions page and prevent it from updating in the Addon Manager. The saved domain associations are retained as long as you do not uninstall.

Version Information

Version 4.1.1-signed
Released July 24, 2014
46.3 kB
Works with
Firefox 24.0 and later, Thunderbird 20.0 and later

FEATURE: XUL panel content was moved to HTML iframes to improve encapsulation and speed.FEATURE: The panel iframes are now populated only when the panel is actually shown.FEATURE: The panel header now contains a button for selecting one of four color schemes.FEATURE: A Chinese translation of the extension text was added.FIX: The 'view as images' feature is working again.FIX: Images are no more given a width of 100% by default.FIX: The animation to full screen is prevented now to avoid resizing multiple times.FIX: The close button again closes the tab even if it is the last one.FIX: The window state option is no longer set to 'full screen' initially.